Book of the Week: "Momoirs" Round-Up

editors — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

There are plenty of books out there that will instruct you on how to enjoy your pregnancy, have a “relaxing” labor, breastfeed with ease, and still be a fashionista throughout it all. These are not those books. The authors of our “momoir” picks dare to ask the tough questions: what if you hate being pregnant, can’t breastfeed to save your life, or never even planned on having a baby in the first place? In these pages, the road to motherhood may be rocky, but it is also filled with honesty, humor, and ultimately, much love. -- Lindsay Armstrong

BOOK: The Second Nine Months by Vicki Glembocki

Premise: Funny and honest (at times brutally), Vicki Glembocki is out to set the record straight on early motherhood. She wants to tell other women what no one ever told her: those first few months of motherhood are really, really hard.

'Bad Parent' Moment: “ ‘Sometimes, I just want to tell her to shut up.’ Rebecca lowers her head, as if waiting for me to pull the tube of Desitin out of my diaper bag and flog her with it… I stick out my arms, ready to hug her. ‘Sometimes I do! Sometimes I do tell her to shut up!’ I yell."

Funniest Moment: “I grab hold with my hands. I squeeze. Nothing. I squeeze again. Nothing. I wrap both hands around my right boob and squeeze, nothing. ‘ I am trying to milk myself,’ I think.”

Turning Point: “As soon as I unhook the strap on the white nursing tank, Blair curls her body around my chest. She shimmies in, like she can’t get close enough to me, like she’s trying to soak into my skin. She’s never done this before.”

BOOK: Rockabye by Rebecca Woolf [who blogs for Babble at "Straight from the Bottle"]

Premise: Rebecca Woolf’s heartfelt and often hilarious account of what happens when an irrepressible young city girl gets pregnant by accident and decides to keep that baby and marry the boyfriend.

Funniest Reaction to the News: “When I first confessed to my mother that I was pregnant, she sighed and said, ‘I’m just glad that it didn’t happen sooner.’ …It was her sweet way of calling me a slut.”

Best Reason Not to Be Pregnant in L.A.: ”Nothing makes a fat woman feel like more of a fat woman than walking backward uphill next to Jessica Alba.”

Turning Point: “ I am especially in awe of Archer’s cuticles, how they look like they could belong to a grown person even though he is only hours old, hours that separate him from his pre life…This is what it feels like to love somebody, I think.”

BOOK: Accidentally on Purpose by Mary Pols

Premise: Mary Pols had always planned on being a mom. She just didn’t plan on getting pregnant at age 39 after a one-night stand with a sweet, underachieving, and much younger man.

On Telling the Father: "There was no getting around how skimpy our relationship was…We’d spent exactly two nights together, a drunken one night stand and a booty call…I wasn’t sure Matt knew my last name (or cared to), and here I was, heading off…to break the news that I was having his baby."

'Bad Parent' Moment: "The fact that I’d possessed such an extravagant item (a $600 vacuum cleaner) was, I had to admit, similar to buying a $49 candle to remove the rat odor from the trailer I was living in because I didn’t have the savings to move into a new apartment."

Turning Point: "I fell in love with my son unconditionally, and only later did I begin to see pieces of myself in him. That reflection has made it so much easier to love myself."

BOOK: Mamarama by Evelyn McDonnell

Premise: A rollicking ‘momoir’ with a pop-culture twist: what happens when a bohemian, feminist, punk-loving music critic becomes a wife and mom of three.

The Heart of the Matter: "I remember a list that was passed out among us female rock critics… '10 reasons why a book is better than a baby.' I don’t remember the specific digs, but the point was clear: we should make something of our own lives first, before we started making other lives."

So True: "Whoever first said, 'It takes a village to raise a family,' was definitely not talking about the East Village."

On Modern Motherhood: "Mamarama isn’t about the perfect madness of trying to be an over-achieving super mom; rather, it’s about the idea that all moms are super. Just because we have kids doesn’t mean we give up our diva glamour as culture mavens. In fact, parenting adds to our worldliness."

BOOK: My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy by Andrea Askowitz

Premise: Andrea Askotwitz takes an unflinching look at her life as a single lesbian mother-to-be in this humorous memoir of her 40 weeks and five days in hell.

On Conceiving as a Lesbian:"Before the insemination, I had to watch a mandatory video: 'Infertility: The New Solutions.' The video featured three heterosexual couples with various fertility problems….When the video was over I told the nurse I’d discovered my problem. 'What is it?' she asked. 'I’m a lesbian,' I said."

The Truth About Pregnancy: "No one says feeling miserable is a side effect. Everyone talks about pregnancy bliss and the prenatal glow This is the worst experience of my life. I’m anti-social, fat, and scared."

Why It Was All Worth It Anyway: "Maybe I didn’t ask Robin how she was feeling. I certainly didn’t ask Kate. With Tashi I have no choice. I have to consider her first. Tashi makes me better."

Black Mothers Underrepresented in Momoir Genre

Amy Kuras — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:32:00 GMT

If you're a modern 21st Century mother, you’ve read at least one "momoir" — books written by mothers that capture, with varying degrees of success, the nature of motherhood in these times.

But as Deesha Philyaw points out in the brilliantly titled "Ain't I A Mommy" article from Bitch (via Alternet), few, if any, such books have been written by black women. Why, she wonders, aren't black women's experiences of parenting considered something that would sell to the mainstream book buyer? After all, Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions started the trend (and in my option remains the best of the genre), and there aren’t a huge number of dreadlocked, single, Christian, liberal, recovering alcoholic moms out there who'd buy the book out of affinity. Good writing sold the book and that's hardly limited to whitefolks.

Philyaw makes several interesting points, one of which is that black women tend to just stay out of the "mommy wars" because of a broader understanding of the myriad reasons women go to work or choose to stay home.

This is my favorite quote from the whole lengthy piece, and a very astute summing up of the reason I roll my eyes when people go on about the "mommy wars":

"Low-income and working-class women, black women, and other women of color don't see their mothering experiences and concerns reflected in the mommy media machine, and we get the cultural message loud and clear: Affluent white women are the only mothers who really matter. Further, media overexposure of these women bolsters the perception of them as self-absorbed brewers of tempests in teapots."

Damn straight. The rest of the article is just this good. Read it, and think.

Strollerderby : momoirs

Book of the Week: "Momoirs" Round-Up

Black Mothers Underrepresented in Momoir Genre